Chapter Text
“Keep your eyes closed…just a little bit longer…just one step. Let me hit record-"
“Do you have to record this?” Steve grumbled as he kept his eyes squeezed shut.
“Sí, cariño!” Carlos grinned. “I want to keep this memory forever. Plus, we promised Reggie. Okay…now, open your eyes!”
Carlos stood back with his phone held in front of him and watched, entranced as his boyfriend opened his eyes and saw the Grand Canyon in person for the very first time. They had reached the south rim right at sunset, just in time to see the blue-pink shadows cast their glow over the rocks that seemed to stretch on for miles.
“Wow,” Steve breathed, frozen as he took in the beauty of the canyon for the first time. “It’s…it’s…”
“Grand?” Carlos offered lightly.
He threw his arms open, demonstrating how huge the canyon was but Steve just shook his head in shock and reached out for Carlos’ hand. Together they walked along the south rim.
“I just…I can’t believe I’m here,” Steve announced. “We drove to the Grand Canyon! I’ve always seen the pictures and seen the Grand Canyon in movies and Reggie always said he’d take me here someday, but I never thought I’d make it and I did.”
“You’ve made it, lindo,” Carlos whispered and kissed his cheek.
Today was the end of the first day of their cross-country road trip and their three month anniversary. Carlos was still in awe of his relationship with Stevie Peters and how much his life had changed in the past three months. He met Steve through Julie and her friends, of course. He had never really believed in love at first sight, he never understood how his dad literally fell in love with his mom from the first day they met, but the moment Steve walked into the Molina’s kitchen Carlos knew he had to get to know Steve as more than friends. After meeting Steve, everything he had always been confused about: love, romance, his sexuality, everything made perfect sense.
And all of his priorities changed. Suddenly, baseball wasn’t the only thing he cared about anymore. Being on his college team was beyond exhausting and stressful, and that was before dealing with a full course load on top of his team workout, practice and game schedule. Falling in love made him realize there was more for him out there than just playing ball. He was barely passing his classes, hated his life aside from his relationship and he just needed out. So, with his dad and sister's support, Carlos left college and moved back home at the end of the semester. At the same time his boyfriend was overwhelmed with applying to nursing school and dealing with a panic disorder diagnosis and really needed a break too. Reggie's PTSD was a lot more stable, and he had promised Stevie he'd be totally fine at home alone. Plus, he imagined Reggie was enjoying his own winter break from teaching middle school math and getting to have time alone with Flynn. Carlos had money that his mom left him, which could have been for college, traveling or wherever your dreams take you mijo. His only dream at the moment was enjoying as much life as he could with his boyfriend, so when Steve joked that somedays he wished he could just get in the car and drive and just keep driving…Carlos agreed and they started planning their dream road trip.
“So…” Carlos spoke up when Steve was too stunned to say anything else, “successful first day?”
Steve let out a laugh and beamed, their pale face illuminated beautifully by the sunset.
“Yeah,” Steve replied, stealing a kiss to Carlos’ cheek. “Successful first day.”
Over the next week, Carlos spent more time in a car than he ever had in his life. For ten plus hours as a day he and Steve sang song after song at the top of their lungs, quickly burning through all of their road trip playlists. After the Grand Canyon they drove up to Monument Valley at the Utah and Arizona state line, where Carlos got a fantastic new profile pic of him laying on top of the car (it was totally worth burning his back for in the hot Arizona sun, totally). They drove down through New Mexico, stopping at many a place where Breaking Bad was filmed in Albuquerque and going out of their way to stay the night in Roswell. It had been years since Carlos had gotten on his YouTube channel and filmed anything paranormal related, but for old times’ sake he couldn’t help but to drag Steve along as he filmed of all the alien-y tourists goodness. The video went viral overnight.
Told you I could be a YouTube star, he had texted his tía the next morning. She sent an eyeroll emoji back, but his dad told him she had proudly bragged about the video on Facebook. Not that Carlos had Facebook, he wasn’t that ancient yet.
Steve drove them north to Denver, Colorado where snow was expected during their stay in their cabin in the Rocky Mountains.
“Your southern Californian ass has no business driving on these roads,” Steve had warned him. “Winter mountain driving’s in my blood! It’s one of the few good things in my blood.”
Driving on icy roads through the mountains with Steve- who was already an anxious enough driver as it was- was an…experience. He closed his eyes as he dramatically clung to the door, expecting them to hit black ice and slide off the road any moment. Eventually, he fell asleep and was shaken awake by Steve after nightfall.
“Hey Car,” Steve whispered. “We’re almost there…look.”
Carlos rubbed his hands against his eyes as he yawned and looked out the window…and stopped. It was pitch black out, but he could still clearly see the snow falling down around them at a gorgeously peaceful pace. The road was coated but Steve wasn’t phased as he grinned at seeing Carlos see the snowfall. The jagged mountains were covered and as he looked up it was like magic, how many flakes were falling from the sky. It felt like he was in a movie.
“I…I’ve never seen snow like this in my life,” Carlos breathed.
“Really? You guys never went to Big Bear or anything?”
He shook his head.
“We’re not really a cold weather family. We wear jackets when it’s seventy out.”
Steve snorted, but the next day he realized Carlos was very much not joking when he stepped out of their cabin wearing a sweater, fleece jacket and his new winter coat over it.
“Oh lindo…” Steve laughed, snapping photo after photo of him. Carlos flipped him off and reached down for a handful of snow and grinned as he started his very first ever snowball fight.
From Colorado, they drove straight east to Kansas. Kansas, he decided, had to be the most boring place on the planet.
“I’ve never seen so much…nothingness,” Steve announced an hour into driving across the state.
He was taking his turn in driving while Carlos texted his family an update of where they were, complete with many out-the-window photos of empty plains.
Looks like a good place to be murdered, tía texted back.
Brings me back to memories of touring with mom, his dad texted back, she loved the emptiness of the Midwest.
It’s empty alright, he texted back.
Carlos smiled as he imagined his parents in their old crappy tour van, traveling with the Pedal Pushers back when they were around his age. He rolled down the window and stuck his head out and let the fresh air hit him, feeling peace in knowing his mother used to drive along some of these same roads back in her touring days.
That night, he dreamed about seeing his mother play at the Orpheum. In the dream, his mother’s face was blurry, her voice seemed too far away and not clear like he used to remember it. He woke up in a panic, with tears clouded in his eyes, not able to remember if the dream was of a real memory or just that…a dream. He felt like he was hit by a ton of bricks as he realized:
He couldn’t remember what his mother sounded like.
“Carlos?” Steve asked in a groggy voice as he woke up beside him in their motel bed.
Carlos let out a choked sob as he sat up in bed, shaking as he desperately fumbled for his phone.
“Carlos, babe, what’s wrong?” Steve demanded gently as he sat up with him.
But he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t breathe he just had to remember. He pulled up a video he had taken when he was a kid, a few years before his mom got sick. She wasn’t playing music full time, but the Pedal Pushers still came over sometimes to jam.
“What’s going on, mi amor?” Steve murmured.
“I just…I just need to listen.”
Steve sat with him, watching in concern but listening as Carlos played the video. The band was playing “All Grown Up”, a song his mom had written for him when he turned thirteen. Instantly, Carlos felt like he could breathe easier as in the video, his dad took over filming and Carlos went to sit at the piano by his mom. She hugged him as she sang the final verses, and he could practically still feel her arms around her.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Carlos let Steve wrap his arms around him and pull him into a hug. He buried his head into his boyfriend’s shoulders.
“What was that all about?” Steve asked.
Carlos swallowed hard and lifted up from their embrace.
“I dreamed about my mom,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “And I couldn’t remember what she sounded like. Her face was all blurry. I’m forgetting my mom, Steve. How could I forget my mom?”
Had he not loved her enough? Not spent enough time with her?
“Oh Car,” Steve sighed, planting a kiss to the top of his head. “You’re not forgetting her. Sometimes it gets harder to remember how people sound- or even how they looked. But especially how they sound. It’s a natural part of getting older and grieving. I read about it in my psychology class, it’s normal for that to happen. It’s nothing you did wrong.”
The rest of the night he let Steve spoon him, holding him close as Carlos told him story after story of his mom. It made him feel better, to remember those memories; it made him feel close to his mom again.
“Sometimes it scares me, that’s it been seven years and the grief still hits so hard sometimes,” Carlos admitted the next morning.
The sunrise was just peering up over the highway their motel overlooked. They sat outside on a couple of plastic, chipped, chairs as they ate Poptarts for breakfast. After finally falling asleep again around three in the morning, admittedly the last thing he felt like doing was driving the nine hours to Memphis.
“I get what you mean,” Steve offered. He took a swig of his diet coke. “It’s like with Reggie and our dad…it’s been hitting him so hard lately, the reality of just how horrible our trauma was, even though it happened years ago.”
“Grief hit Julie so hard so fast,” Carlos sighed, “sometimes I wish that happened to me, so that I could have dealt with it by now.”
He regretted it even as he said it, knowing that wasn’t fair- Julie still missed their mom as much as he did.
“There’s no timeline for grief,” Steve said, placing a hand on his shoulder; Carlos threw him a grateful smile. His boyfriend smirked. “Or so my therapist says. What the fuck do I know?”
They both snorted, and Carlos leaned forward to give his boyfriend a kiss. Of course, at that very moment an old white man who threw them a disgusted look. Carlos glared at him, just daring the man to say something, but he man just hurried by.
“We’re not in California anymore, are we?” Steve mumbled as they broke apart.
“Nope.”
He wasn’t stupid, he knew the further they got into rural America and the more right-leaning states they drove through the more likely they’d be to run into people who had problems with the color of his skin and him holding hands with a boy. But he knew for every racist and homophobic person there was many more who were perfectly accepting, nice people. Carlos was sure lot of rural areas were stereotyped, just like Los Angeles had a lot of stereotypes. Nothing was going to stop him from being proud of who he was- in fact, it only made him want to be louder about his pride.
“I dunno about you, but I feel like we’ve earned a day off of driving,” Steve spoke up. He cleared his throat. “It might be nice to spend the day in a regular old non-touristy place, you know? And…um…there’s actually a gay club near here that’s eighteen and up. A date night sounds nice.”
Carlos raised an eyebrow, impressed. His boyfriend was typically not a going out clubbing type of person.
“You hate clubs,” Carlos pointed out, “and you don’t drink, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
Admittedly, Carlos he had only been to a couple of gay clubs since he came out, and that was with Willie and Alex. He had never been by himself and the thought of going to one in a totally unfamiliar city was more than a little nervewrecking…but there was a first time for everything.
“I won’t be uncomfortable,” Steve promised, flashing him a big smile that made him look very much like Reggie. “And I could use some dancing.”
And so, he and Steve spent the day wandering around Wichita. They sent Alex and Willie pictures from the local arts museum, he sent Julie pictures from a local diner as he joked ‘thinking of you’ (his sister was working a double at their diner back home and sent him back some very unamused emojis), and they even did a tour of the famous one-hundred year old Wichita Orpheum. He sent a picture to Luke joking ‘don’t worry, we skipped the hotdog stand out back’. That evening, they poured out all the clothes they brought with them for the trip (which, granted, was only a few outfits each) and managed to put together presentable club-wear and headed out for a night of dancing and virgin cocktails. And that night, the two had a much-needed romantic night in.
The next day, they took turns switching off driving and napping on the way to Memphis, TN. Carlos woke up from one of his naps to find they were at a gas station and a lot more trees around them now than the empty plains of Kansas. The people getting gas were a mixture of poor white people and people of color after mostly seeing white people for the past few days.
“Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?” Carlos joked.
He realized then his boyfriend looked paler than normal; Steve actually looked a bit ill as he shook his head. Carlos frowned.
“Are you okay, cariño?” Carlos asked.
Steve just stared straight ahead into the small, old, convenience store, which was complete with bars on the windows. There was a tall, white brunette woman standing outside the door, wearing a uniform for the gas station company and smoking. She was all skin and bones, with coarse bangs that fell in front of her cold eyes. Something was incredible familiar about this woman, but Carlos couldn’t describe it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve nodded, his voice a bit high pitched as he explained: “We’re outside of Covington, TN. I missed our exit and got turned around finding my way back.”
“Okay, I admire your determination to not rely on GPS, but you’ve been driving for a long time, babe, maybe you should let me drive for a bit and I’ll re-route us.”
“No, it’s fine,” Steve insisted, “I’m just gonna go in and grab some water, okay? Go back to sleep."
The whole situation felt…weird, but he couldn’t describe why.
“I might come in too," he offered, "I need to walk around some.”
“No, it’s okay! I’ll just be five minutes. We’re only about an hour from Memphis, we’ll be there soon. Stay here, I’ll be right back.
It was almost like Steve was reassuring himself something more than anything, and Carlos felt more reluctant than ever to leave him. But Steve climbed out of the car, closing the door before he could say anything else.
“Covington, TN,” Carlos repeated to himself. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
Steve felt like he was walking through a dream as he aimlessly walked around the little convenience store, pretending like he was looking for food. The woman up front hadn’t even noticed him walking through the door, which shouldn’t have infuriated him as much as it did. It’s not like anyone would expect him to be here, at this little gas station in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee. He grabbed a couple of waters and some chips; each step he took up to the counter felt like it lasted a mile.
“Anything else?” The cashier asked.
He shivered at the woman’s smoker’s voice and how she coughed into her elbow just from the effort of talking. She looked so skinny and frail, like a skeleton.
“No,” Steve replied in a tight voice.
The cashier bagged the snacks and accepted his card without giving him so much as a second glance.
She had no idea who he was.
His hands shook as he took the bags and started to flee the store, knowing that was it. He had no reason to hang around the store. Steve didn’t even want to stick around Covington or have anything to do with west Tennessee anymore.
“Stevie?”
The small voice calling after him made him freeze. His heart pounded, and suddenly Steve wished that he hadn’t told Carlos to stay in the car at all; he was actually going to do this and he was completely alone. But Steve was also an adult now, an adult that was more than ready to confront his past. Ever so slowly, Steve turned around and met the woman’s green eyes. Green eyes that looked exactly like his own.
“Hi, Mom.”